Warne exit gives postman Hogg his red-letter day

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

As Shane Warne confirmed yesterday that his mother gave him the banned drug that could end his illustrious career, the farm boy who is likely to replace him in the Australian team reflected on life as a postman.

"I won't be giving up the day job, no matter what happens," Bradley Hogg said. "The Australian Postal Service have been far too good to me in the past, giving me time off for state matches and fitting my shifts around practice."

The 32-year-old Hogg, who was brought up on a 3,000-acre sheep farm in the outback, first had his international career resurrected when Warne dislocated his shoulder last December. He was recalled to Australia's squad after a gap of six years and acquitted himself well enough in the VB Series to earn a World Cup place.

Warne's withdrawal from the tournament after he tested positive for a proscribed diuretic means that Hogg will fill the spinner's place in the side with his versatile brand of left-arm chinamen. It is a scenario he hardly dared envisage a month ago.

"Delivering letters has its moments," he said. "My biggest brush with danger was when I nearly ran over a rottweiler on my motorbike. Fortunately, the dog ran straight past me because I would have definitely come off worst.

"These days I try to stay in the office. But I'll be going back there because I'm the sort of bloke who's got to keep busy."

Warne arrived in Melbourne and said he was given a fluid tablet by his mother, Brigitte. "Contrary to speculation, taking it had nothing to do with the treatment for my shoulder injury or for masking any banned substance," he said. "I did not give it another thought until contacted by ASDA [the Australian Sports Drug Agency] this week."

Warne hopes that the B sample, taken at the same time, will be tested by the end of next week. But there was further bad news for Warne from ASDA, which carried out the test on 22 January, the day before Warne made his surprising return after only six weeks.

The organisation's chairman, Dr Brian Sando, said: "Unfortunately for the athlete it's very unlikely that that specimen, which really is part of the original one, is going to show anything different."

Sando said he was disappointed at the positive test but exhibited little sympathy with athletes. "Sometimes it is very vague. But they really have to pay a penalty because unfortunately it's not possible to differentiate frequently between those who have done something inadvertently and those who may not have been trying to do it inadvertently." Warne faces a two-year ban from the game.